Game Translation

[Shadow]

[Not sure if this post is better here or under The Gameplay Mechanics Assembly, feel free to move it.]

 

Hello Novaquark (and hello everyone),

 

I was wondering what languages you planned to support for the game and if you thought about asking help to the community on this subject ?

 

Even if I never used them, there are some online translation tool (like Transifex used by Prison Architect for example) which seem to be useful and well-designed so that translations are also reviewed.

 

What is your opinion ?

 

Regards,

Shadow.

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

Hi Shadow,

 

Welcome on our forum!

Regarding translation, we plan to translate the game in other languages than English, but this will be probably a milestone significantly after the official release. Regarding the possibility of whether or not asking help from community hasn't been discussed yet in the team as it is a very far goal right now. But we will keep you informed about this point in the future

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar.

[Shadow]

Hi Nyzaltar and thank you  ,

 

I prefer to ask early as implementing translation can require costly changes in the code base if it was not anticipated.

 

Also, from my experience (especially EvE Online, but also other MMO and sandbox games), not supporting different languages at launch or shortly after it can discourage players as people who are not speaking fluently start with a disadvantage (either by playing later, once the game is translated, or try to play in an environment they don't understand or misunderstand).

Of course, I'm not talking about alpha or closed/open beta where it's clearly ok to stick with English.

 

Moreover, adding several languages shows to foreign players that they are not forgotten and that you take care of them.

Like in more standard games (with multiple shards), players often yell when there is no EU servers, for example.

 

I understand that translating is really time-consuming (I organized a project aiming to translate Lineage2 in a distant past). That's why I was pointing out that community can help too  .

 

Anyway, thank you for your fast answer.

 

Regards,

Shadow

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

Hi Shadow,

 

Your concerns regarding translation are perfectly understandable.

 

As we have several people in our team who are also EvE players, we are aware of how the translation was handled for this game. While it's not planned to have the game translated in many languages at launch, there will be preparative work done in early stages of development to make it easy to implement when the time will come.

 

And about the reasons why we don't plan to have other languages at launch, there is of course the financial one, but it's not the only one:

- Having several available languages at launch is perfectly fine for MMORPGs with a multiple shard systems.

- Having several available languages at launch in a single shard universe (like EvE) contains some risks.

 

Imagine a language other than English becomes the main language used in game right from the start. All the players not proficient in this language might very well be discouraged by this fact. It has been seen in a few games in the past, launched just with an international server. English is the most spoken language in video games (at least if we are not aiming to the asian market). So doing the game first in English (and in other languages after release) is also a way to avoid unplanned situations. This is also a way to incite players to communicate with all others, regardless of their nationality, especially for diplomacy (because let's be honest: which language is used for diplomatic talk in EvE, most of the time ? )

 

Best Regards,

Nyzaltar.

[Shadow]

I can only bend to your reasoning.

Very convincing about how deep went your thoughts.

 

Imagine a language other than English becomes the main language used in game right from the start. All the players not proficient in this language might very well be discouraged by this fact. It has been seen in a few games in the past, launched just with an international server. English is the most spoken language in video games (at least if we are not aiming to the asian market). So doing the game first in English (and in other languages after release) is also a way to avoid unplanned situations. This is also a way to incite players to communicate with all others, regardless of their nationality, especially for diplomacy (because let's be honest: which language is used for diplomatic talk in EvE, most of the time ? )

 

English is not only used for diplomacy   (did you ever try to understand a Russian fleet commander speaking to Frenches in  English ? it is worth it). Actually, we even push french people to use the game in English if they can.

Having a french translation is more a security for those who are not quite confident they can understand English and for game discovery.

 

Regards,

Shadow

[Rappeldrache]

Everquest 2 had a horrible German translation at the beginning. It was ... terrible. But after a few years we could see improvements and than it got a good German translation.

 

So: It IS possible to translate a MMO "later". 

[Anaximander]

Everquest 2 had a horrible German translation at the beginning. It was ... terrible. But after a few years we could see improvements and than it got a good German translation.

 

So: It IS possible to translate a MMO "later". 

Didn't everquest 2 had ProSieben set up due to that? O_o

 

But yeah, good luck with translating anything into German I was one in a place called Lemgo in germany and I found out by the locals that beer in germany has different words for it depending on the region. depending on hochdeutsch or plattdeutsch dialects. I am shitcanned on how difficult it would be to make a universal german transaltion.

[Allammo]

That's not good. I was hoping NQ will implement lot of languages for alpha release. More languages, more players, more players, more money, more money... Well you know how it works. I'm concerned bout my girlfriend, she can't speak English and she don't want to learn - we've argued bout it couple times, believe me, it's pointless to try to convince her. Anyway, if game will be to complex she won't play, she won't play probably I'll have to stop thinking about this game, and couple of our friends cause we all play together. So please consider it or at least make it easy to translate so community could do that.

[Allammo]

That's not good. I was hoping NQ will implement lot of languages for alpha release. More languages, more players, more players, more money, more money... Well you know how it works. I'm concerned bout my girlfriend, she can't speak English and she don't want to learn - we've argued bout it couple times, believe me, it's pointless to try to convince her. Anyway, if game will be to complex she won't play, she won't play probably I'll have to stop thinking about this game, and couple of our friends cause we all play together. So please consider it or at least make it easy to translate so community could do that.